


Frost

by hotpielookedlikehotpie



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Post-War, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-22
Updated: 2012-06-22
Packaged: 2017-11-08 08:00:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/440988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hotpielookedlikehotpie/pseuds/hotpielookedlikehotpie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post-ADWD; years later/future fic – Arya and Gendry find each other and decide to finally finish their journey and travel back to her old home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Frost

**Author's Note:**

> I didn't know where I was going with this and voila this is what happened. I started this months ago and never finished it until today I got the urge to.

Her laughter rang out in an empty sort of song. It seemed fitting, Gendry thought to himself, as he took in the surroundings. The place before them was hollow and empty itself. A fire took it over, they knew and heard, and enemies laid here trying to rebuild but war got in the way (war, it seemed, always got in the way). The place was abandoned, and in the dead of winter it seemed a haunted place. She laughed maybe so that to show the place that she was not afraid of any ghosts it was storing. Or maybe because if she didn't laugh, she would cry.

"The rode to finding home is never an easy one, m'lady," Gendry said after a while of the two of them standing at the gates in silence. He made sure to say "m'lady;" made sure to give her something to have an emotion about, even if it's anger.

She hit him, though he could feel the amount she didn't put into it. "Stupid. Don't call me m'lady." Arya takes the lead then, and steps into the threshold of Winterfell. If she was haunted by her past she didn't show it. Gendry didn't expect her to be though; Arya was made up of too many pasts to be hung up on one. Still there was a sickening echo to each of their footsteps, and the sound made him himself think of his own regrets.

"There's a smith," Arya said, smiling for just a moment in the devilish playful way that she used to have stained upon her always. He took her hand and the two of them walked over to the forge and go inside. He immediately went to the work station. They've been journeying a while to make their way up to Winterfell and he missed the feel of a hammer in his hand, a fire at his back, and a steel song singing in the air. He picked up the hammer and smirked to himself. He missed it, yes. _Not as much as I missed m'lady_ , he thought to himself wryly, wondering how big of a bruise he'd have if he said it aloud, and it added more onto his smile. The years that he spent with her "elsewhere" blurred together in just the same image of work. He never really let himself think too much during those times (not that that was a hard task, really). But one day she showed up and asked him to come with her somewhere. He didn't even ask, he never had, and he went.

She hit him on the head, playfully this time. Her turned to her confused and she just scoffed. "I said, doesn't this place remind you of anywhere?" She takes the hammer from his hands, and it drops a bit from the weight. Her eyebrows bunched together and she makes sure that she is able to pick it back up and hold it for a while on her own; she is strong, she doesn't need him, she just wants him there.

"All smiths seem the same m'-" 

She cut him off by putting the hammer on the table and turning to face him. Close, very close. He noticed the space (or lack of more like it) between them. "I mean one particular time. When I looked like a real lady. Or rather, a lady of Acorns." He smiled and she smiled back, in a way he knew she was about to mock him. "You _sniffed_ me."

He laughed and she did too. Her laugh filled him up with the feeling that it was real and the juxtaposition it played against her first laugh she sang out here. He lunged for her. "I remember a certain Acorn Princess trying to wrestle with me." She ducked out of his grab for her easily, and ended up climbing upon the table to get away from him and he was smiling, smiling so much it hurts, smiling so much that it felt like a dream. The two of them after all this time, after all these lifetimes they lived and died through in all the years, playing amongst a graveyard of ghosts and pasts. He wondered what she'd do if he laid her down right there and kissed her, see what she'd have to say about the Acorn Princess she used to be, but he saw the look that still stays in her eyes no matter the smile and decided against it. Something else was on her mind, somewhere else. 

The laughter and smiles died off soon enough and they realized that they cannot spend their whole time in the smith. "Come on," Arya said lightly, and it was her turn to take his hand and lead him out of the place.

They stood in silence of the snow for a little while, and at some point Arya let go of his hand. He bunched it into his furs instead, feeling a bit restless, and she stayed perfectly still. She tried to go back in her head and imagine what this place looked like. She had to fight every person she had been between now and then. Back before Gendry even. It was a long time ago, and her memory of it all wasn't perfect, but it still looked better than what it was. She muttered something under her breath, and Gendry didn't catch it. "What?" 

"It's not right. Nothing of this is right. Nothing is the same," She stated louder. She felt childish, but it was true. She wasn't expecting to come back to the place to a hundred familiar warm smiles, or even anyone. But she wanted the place to at least have the feeling of the home that she used to have.

"Nothing stays the same, Arry," He tells her softly. "Nothing stays the same, no one, no place, nothing."

"Come on." She took the lead again and they made their way to the main hall of Winterfell. She lead him through every room of the damned place. Every nook and every cranny seemed to whisper of the greatness that they used to be. In her old room she stood there for a while longer than usual. She stayed quiet and was disconnected from what was happening in the world at the moment. Gendry tried to imagine Winterfell in the time when Arya was a little girl, but it was to no avail. He couldn't even imagine Arya as a young girl, a young lady, running around in skirts and doing needlework. _Was she ever a child, really?_ He asked himself. Even when he first knew her, back when she was young, she was not a child. He wondered if she ever had a child's heart with child wishes and wants. It seemed rather doubtful, but in his head he heard his mother's voice singing, and he remembered a time that he was a child too.

When they were done combing the castle's run down land, they stood in the snow covered yard again. The wind whistled and Gendry could feel the cold wrap around his bones. He never had been so north, and although he lived through winters and cold days, he never felt anything like this. He wanted to say something but his head felt frozen itself and he couldn't think of what to say. Wordlessly, Arya took his hand again and started to lead him in front of a broken archway they didn't go through before. Gendry looked in, and saw that it was a godswood. It was enormous, or he figured it was at some point in time. It mostly seemed a graveyard now, full of used-to-be great trees. Godswoods were for the old gods, the gods of the North. There were no gods here, no trees to look on and protect the ghosts that lingered. All that was left in this place were haunted memories and broken spirits. 

Gendry turned towards Arya and saw a mask of no emotion. He knew a word or two of the training that she had, how she was able to control her face if she needed to. He saw her standing there staring, and knew that she was in a different state within herself. Inside he knew she was screaming. He wanted to help her but he didn't know how. _Could an embrace comfort Arya Stark?_ He doubted that; this girl of Winter was carved of ice and ice never had a particular fondness for embraces. So he did the best he could: he stood and he waited. 

"Let's leave," She said, in a voice stronger than he could ever think he'd hear. "There's nothing left and it's to snow soon."

She turned her back on the godswood and started leaving. Gendry turned as well and caught up with his long strides matching her smaller, quicker ones. Soon enough, they were out of Winterfell and in the forests surrounding it, never to look upon the place again. Their walk was quiet and brisk, like the oncoming night. Arya pushed her way through the forest, her sword in her left hand. Whenever even the smallest branch came by, imposing the possibility of being in the way, she flicked her sword wrist and it was gone. He knew that within her a storm was being brewed. He knew that nothing he could do would calm it.

"Stop it," she said suddenly and forcefully, turning around and facing him. He looked at her curiously and stopped as well. 

"Stop what?"

"You know damn well what I mean. Stop thinking. I know you are, I can _hear_ it. You think so loudly, and you need to just shut up." Her teeth were clenched he noted. She whipped her head back around and kept walking. "And no, I don't want to talk. I don't want to talk about what we saw. So shut up about that too."

She was staring down, ahead, he wasn't sure. All he knew is that she wasn't seeing anything but the image of the fallen Winterfell. "Arya-" He started, knowing she was going to lash out at him.

"Shut up, I said!" She was near hysterics, and the knowledge of that seemed to only push her further into it. "Just. Shut. Up." Each word was punctuated by her slashing her sword at the fallen leaves around them. The area was covered in trees and the snow didn't get through the branches, at least not yet. Frost laid upon the ground and glistened. He expected the snows to fall soon, tonight, and blanket the whole place. "I don't care about what I saw," She said, bringing him back into what was happening. He stood there and watched her as she fell apart. "I don't care that the place is a mess. I don't care that the only place I ever could call a home is gone. I don't care if the gods that my dead father prayed to are destroyed. I don't care if my stupid bed that I used to sleep in is still unmade under all the ash." Slash, slash, slash, at the air. "I don't. Care."

He reached out for her sword arm and grabbed it. Immediately at his touch she dropped Needle, and stared for a bit at her empty hand. Silence, breath, and wind. And when she looked up at him, she realized that her eyes would show everything. _Don't let him see my eyes, don't let him see me, don't let him see this,_ she thought. Panicked, she did what she knew she needed to do. She kissed him.

She kissed him hard and she kissed him fast, and in the middle of it, she realized that she wanted to do this for a rather long while. He was surprised, knew that she was trying to distract him, and he counted himself distracted. He knew he should stop her and make her talk - _talk_ \- but as he let go of her arm to push her away he found that his hands found their way to the small of her back to pull her body closer to his. Her hands found their way into his hair, holding his face to hers. He opened his mouth to talk but the moment he took a breath she bit his lower lip.

Gendry pulled away and the two of them looked at each other. The past of Winterfell wasn't hidden behind her eyes anymore; they no longer shined with the ache of a wolf. They were completely present, and completely looking at him. "Arya, you can't just kiss me so that you don't have to talk about-"

"Yes I can," She answered simply and pushed him back as her mouth formed upon his again. She pushed him more back and soon enough there was a rock underneath his feet and the two of them were falling. She laid upon his chest and gazed down upon him for a second until she was on him again. The fall hurt, and his back felt like shit, but her mouth upon his again made him forget that. His hands held her face while hers were on his arms, tracing the muscles that his years of smithing formed. Contact of one another's skin underneath hands left a wake of goosebumps on the both of them. She trailed her fingers down his veins, down to his waist, and she hooked them on to his belt loops. The feeling of her hands upon his waist brought Gendry back to the present, back to what was happening, and _gods that was Arya who was locked in a battle of tongues with him._ He'd be lying to himself to say he didn't want this but he couldn't see her wanting this. Was she using him, this to just forget the wreck of her past?

He pushed her face back lightly and heard her growl in disapproval. He chuckled, and she moved her hands up to the clasp of his cloak and unfastened it and moving it from upon his body and onto the leaves all around them. He shivered slightly, and he wondered if it was from the oncoming snow or the woman of winter atop of him. Her hands went to go around his neck and he caught her wrists and held them at his sides. "Arya, why is this happening?" He asked, awkwardly with an involuntary husk to his voice. He didn't know how to word the question, but he needed to ask it.

She cocked her eyebrows. "Why? Because I wanted to kiss you," She answered simply and brought her face - her body - close to his. There was a laugh to her voice now. "Are you not enjoying this?"

His ears turned red. She _knew_ he was enjoying this; sitting where she was she was just at the edge of him and could feel him hard from underneath his breeches. But this was Arya, she had to be difficult. Keeping his grip on her wrists, he quickly flipped her over so that she was laying upon his cloak and he was just above her, on his knees and arms just above her body. He held her face. "I'm just making sure you're not doing this to try and forget what you saw of Winterfell, m'lady."

"Of course I'm doing this to forget what I saw," She told him, looking up at him. "But why does that make any difference."

He tried to come up with an answer but she brought his mouth down to hers again to have his tongue dip into her mouth. His mind blanked, and as his hands found hers and brought them above their heads, brushing into the tree bark that was right near them, he didn't care. She was underneath him and suddenly grabbing at the strings of his shirt and when it fell beside them, her hands were on his muscles. He tried to think of what the temperature was – cold? – because he was sure that he should be freezing and shivering without his cloak, without his shirt. But her hands left a trailing fire upon his skin and he knew that in a mindset that he could pay attention in he'd wonder if he was just getting frostbite. 

His fingers trailed to the edge of her shirt and then traveled underneath it, climbed up her stomach and he could count her ribs – if he was able to take a moment and think about numbers. But he couldn't, couldn't, because there she was and his hands tried to discover her and map out all of her. He could feel her scars and his mind went to when he'd ask about where she had been and she went quiet, only dishing out a clipped word or two. She wouldn't tell him much. Maybe she would one day. She grunted then, impatience at how his mind wondered, and her hands went to the edge of her shirt and before he knew it, her shirt was off as well.

Silence and stillness between the two of them, and their eyes took each other in.

He felt her hands graze one of his scars, and he could feel the question in her, in her hands and how she touches it, _where is this one from?_ She wanted to lose herself in _his_ past, lose her own past in his, but no, that's not what they're working at right then, half naked in the frost. So he brought himself back down to her, mouth fitted against mouth, and her hands went from his scars to his muscles, where it's not a question of where they came from but the simple answer of smithing.

Not that any more questions were being asked. 

"We should find a cave," he spluttered out against her mouth as her hands roamed and went further, further down.

She looked up at him, eyebrows quirked. "A cave?" 

"We're in the middle of the forest and I believe you're about to completely disrobe me, m'lady."

"You've become modest." Her hands pulled his breeches down. "Have you forgotten that I've seen you naked before? Who are you trying to hide from in a dark cave? There's no one here." 

"Those were – that was different circumstances." His eyebrows were drawn, thinking back to their time in Harrenhal, as he stared at her staring at him, all of him, and he kicked the damned clothes off of himself completely. "You woke me up in the middle of the night and you were just a _child_ , you weren't looking–"

"I looked."

"Gods, Arya. Fine, you looked, but you were fixed on making sure we left that damned haunted castle and _now_ you're fixing on forgetting _that_ damned castle behind us now." His hands went to her breeches then – still, after all these years dressed more of a boy than a girl, and he wouldn't want it any other way. He threw them on top of his. "And you're naked also now."

"And you're on top of me and _gods, Gendry,_ do you ever shut up?" She grabbed his hips and positioned him directly on top of her. She stroked him and breathed in his moan as he felt as if he'd come undone right there. 

"Have you ever done this before?" He managed to get out, and if he wasn't so distracted by her he'd be embarrassed by how much he was already panting.

"What? Have I ever fucked someone?" He held back a laugh and nodded at the blunt girl. "No. But I met a couple of courtesans in Braavos and they showed me what to do." 

He didn't hold in his laugh after that. Of course she'd watch courtesans in Braavos. "Why didn't you ever do it?"

She shrugged, seemingly disinterested in the conversation, in him even. But she still touched, and he tried (failed) to seem as indifferent to all of this as she was acting. "I was curious about it, but not curious enough to do it. No one there really caught my eye."

He smirked down at her, and even pushed himself right to her entrance. She stopped her movements and just went back to gripping his hips at that and hissed. He smirked bigger. "And have _I_ caught your eye, m'lady?"

"Just shut up and get on with it, you stupid bastard." He thought of a time when that word, _bastard_ , hurt because it felt like a cut made directly at him, and maybe it still hurt after all these years, but it didn't hurt now. He knew that she wasn't make a jab at his parentage, but rather just a impatient fire waiting to be lit. He laughed again because he could see the desire in her eyes. He complied, and pushed into her. She let out a sort of cry and it sobered his laugh and he stood still, gods he didn't want to _hurt_ her. 

"Are you okay?" He asked, knowing that she wouldn't want him to ask, to care, to question, but he had to.

She scowled at him. "I'm fine." She moved her hips up to his and it was his turn to hiss. " _Move_ , stupid." He complied, and they found themselves within a rhythm amongst the frosted forest floor, building to something, building, building, and soon were falling off a cliff with each other's names on their lips, their bodies left in tremors.

After they were both spent, she pushed his body off of hers and got dressed without saying a thing. He watched her, slightly dumbfounded, until he shook his head and gathered his clothes back together and on again. After they were both dressed he took her into his arms and laid a hot open-mouthed kiss upon her, just for the simple fact because he wanted to and because he _could_.

"Where do we go now?" He asked her, slightly fearful of the answer. She just asked him to come with her to wherever she was going, and they went. They got to Winterfell. There was nothing left for her there, he knew that. Whoever she was back then when that place was home was no longer. 

She smiled at him and shrugged. "Don't know." She smiled wider. "Don't care. We could just walk and walk until we find ourselves lost and disappear from the world." _Disappear from all of these ghosts, until you and I are the only things that are real._

He smiled back at her. "You looking to live like those people in your childhood stories? Those children of the forest?"

"They aren't real."

"Well maybe they were. Maybe they were just people that decided to go into the woods and lose themselves within them until nothing else was longer true. Maybe they bedded on the forest floor instead of a featherbed and it casted a certain spell that made them never grow old again and never be found."

They were walking again at that point, just side by side. He considered taking her hand, but that was a stupid thought really, and maybe that thought of it being stupid was stupid itself, they touched more than just _hands_ only a short while ago, but he was fine with just walking with her, didn't need to hold her hand.

They were silent, until she spoke again. "No. We're not going to live like the forest children. We're not going to live like any of the stories or songs. They never end well. We'll just live. Alright?" 

He looked at the trees, the snow that started to fall slowly again, and at her, at her he looked the most. And he said, "Alright." He smirked and added, "m'lady," and laughed when she screamed and started to chase him, the two of them disappearing into the forest and snow, echoing their voices until it wasn't heard anymore.


End file.
